Web site offers varied accommodations options

ACCOMMODATIONS

Andrea Sachs, Washington Post

Published
4:00 am PDT, Sunday, August 2, 2009

Paul Chiang makes his studio apartment in New York's Chelsea neighborhood available through Hotel Toshi and the Web site Airbnb. The income helps him pay the rent. Airbnb pairs those who need a bed with those who have one to spare.
Paul Chiang makes his studio apartment in New York's Chelsea neighborhood available through Hotel Toshi and the Web site Airbnb. The income helps him pay the rent. Airbnb pairs those who need a bed with those who have one to spare. Illustrates AIRBNB (category t), by Andrea Sachs (c) 2009, The Washington Post. Moved Tuesday, July 28, 2009. (MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Helayne Seidman) less

Paul Chiang makes his studio apartment in New York's Chelsea neighborhood available through Hotel Toshi and the Web site Airbnb. The income helps him pay the rent. Airbnb pairs those who need a bed with those ... more

Photo: Helayne Seidman, Washington Post

Photo: Helayne Seidman, Washington Post

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Paul Chiang makes his studio apartment in New York's Chelsea neighborhood available through Hotel Toshi and the Web site Airbnb. The income helps him pay the rent. Airbnb pairs those who need a bed with those who have one to spare.
Paul Chiang makes his studio apartment in New York's Chelsea neighborhood available through Hotel Toshi and the Web site Airbnb. The income helps him pay the rent. Airbnb pairs those who need a bed with those who have one to spare. Illustrates AIRBNB (category t), by Andrea Sachs (c) 2009, The Washington Post. Moved Tuesday, July 28, 2009. (MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Helayne Seidman) less

Paul Chiang makes his studio apartment in New York's Chelsea neighborhood available through Hotel Toshi and the Web site Airbnb. The income helps him pay the rent. Airbnb pairs those who need a bed with those ... more

Photo: Helayne Seidman, Washington Post

Web site offers varied accommodations options

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Laura's place in New York's Little Italy has a dingy bathmat, and she wears a Santa hat. Don's pad in Hell's Kitchen is all white, a cloud with four walls. Cristina's NoLita studio is flooded with natural light and includes laundry facilities, but the bed is a box spring on the floor.

Now, Rad's House I could do: The private room in a two-bedroom apartment near Tompkins Square Park comes with fresh towels, kitchen privileges and a pair of brothers in their 20s who play drums, eat bagels on Sunday and charge less than $100 a night.

I discovered these assorted sleeping arrangements - and voyeuristic snapshots of New York apartments - on Airbnb, a nearly year-old Web site that works like Match.com for travelers, pairing those who need a bed with those who have one to spare.

"It's anything between couch surfing and a hotel," said Brian Chesky, 27, who co-founded the site with his two roommates, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. "However, our name is becoming confusing, because we've been growing outside our core concept. Air beds aren't really involved anymore."

By the founders' definition, a crash pad can be a gym mat on a rooftop deck, a futon in a married couple's apartment, an aerie in a Ritz-Carlton residence, a tree house in the woods or a berth on a boat. You won't find a standard hotel room here, but you will find everything else.

Since launching last August, Airbnb has become an expanding, pillow-studded universe, and at last count, it boasted accommodations in 1,108 cities in 77 countries, including more than 870 properties in the New York area alone. "We're only in the beginning," said Chesky. "We hope to have more rooms than the Hilton."

Anyone can post a lodging on the site, and any renter can take them up on the offer. Some of the properties appear on multiple sites, such as Roomorama and FeelNYC; others are exclusive to Airbnb. Prices start at youth-hostel levels and rise, though most are $150 or less. (The site tacks on a transaction fee of about 10 percent.)

For the most part, the people and places are not vetted, inspected or interviewed by the Airbnb guys. The site is self-policed: The users create safeguards through renter reviews, detailed profiles and kaleidoscopic photos of the property. "We are reputation-based, like eBay," said Chesky, who holds meet-and-greets with hosts when he is on the road. The company has installed one layer of protection, holding the money for 24 to 48 hours, until it has confirmed that the guest has safely (and contentedly) checked in.

To book a room, start by perusing the properties, then send a query about availability to prospective hosts. Once the responses are in, pick your favorite, submit a booking request and await further instruction, such as the host's contact information and key pickup time and location.

I settled on two apartments (one private, one shared) and waited for replies. The host has 32 hours to respond. If you don't hear back, the booking is canceled, the $1 charge for credit-card authorization is returned, and you are free to start over. The Radparvar brothers of Rad's House confirmed within a few hours; the owner of an Upper East Side studio was not so prompt. I turned instead to a studio in Chelsea managed by Hotel Toshi, a Brooklyn rental property firm named after the colorful Chinese American who owns it.

'Hip place to live'

I walked past the building - and the keeper of the apartment key - twice before realizing that the early-1900s brick structure with a doorman was my home for the night. I followed Hotel Toshi intern Paul Chiang, as friendly as the boy next door, through the black-and-white-tiled lobby and into the elevator. Chelsea "is the hip place to live," he said. "It used to be the West Village."

Chiang held open the door as I stepped inside, yes, a real New York apartment: small but not suffocating, with wood molding on the white walls, hardwood floors that creaked slightly and a cubbyhole kitchen with a cutout window into the main room, ideal for a drive-through dinner party.

Checkout the next day was at 11 a.m., but I had lost track of time while eating breakfast on the roof deck. When I contacted Chiang for a later checkout, he invited me to evening cocktails at Hotel Toshi's headquarters. "Toshi loves drinking with clients," he said.

"What went wrong?" he exclaimed after meeting me. "The only reason someone comes in from Manhattan is to yell at me. Did something happen?"

Everything was great, I assured him. Loved the place, the location, Chiang, the doorman, the neighbor who recommended a good sushi restaurant and the invitation for cocktails. We sat on white leather couches and talked about Toshi, a.k.a. Robert Chan, a very interesting topic.

"I throw parties, that's what I do, that's what I am good at and enjoy," said the 35-year-old San Francisco native, adding that he'd been kicked out of Columbia University for his fete-ing ways. "Everything else I fell into." In addition to real estate, he also stumbled into acting, appearing in several films and TV commercials here and abroad.

A varied mix

More than half of Airbnb's properties are private rooms in shared abodes, 40 percent are entire homes or apartments, and 7 percent are shared rooms, such as a futon in a living room. By contrast, at Roomorama, a short-term rental site that launched in July 2008, only 20 percent of the offerings are of the insta-roommate variety.

"It requires a certain open-mindedness," said Dave Radparvar, one half of Rad's House. "This is not for the person who wants to stay at a hotel in Midtown."

After picking up the key at the corner bodega, I set down my bag in what I assumed was my room - the one with NYC guidebooks on the shelf and Liz Claiborne towels on the bed. I stepped into the bathroom, noting the array of Tom's Toothpaste tubes, an empty jelly jar for guests' toothbrushes and a wall of Post-it potty poetry.

The money the brothers reap from Airbnb is central to their survival; they recently quit their jobs to focus full time on their eco-clothing line, Holstee. Airbnb "is helping us fund our own business and helps us cover our rent," he said. "It's not a get-rich scheme."

My visit with the Radparvar brothers was for one brief night, but from what I could glean from their stories of bongo jams and Persian dinner parties, the longer you stay, the more the distinction between host and guest dissolves. "We develop a close bond and are sad to see them go," Mike told me the next day. "It's been a lifestyle thing. No matter where we live, we'll still do Airbnb."

Minimize the surprises

Booking accommodations on Airbnb ( www.airbnb.com) takes a bit more skill than, say, reserving a room at a hotel. Here are tips to help you sleep wisely:

-- To lower your risk, choose a place that features an abundance of information, such as a full profile of the host, a thorough description of the property and, most important, a sizable number of guest reviews. (Guests cannot post a review until after their stay, preventing phantom travelers from writing deceptive accounts.)

-- The hosts want safe and respectful visitors in their homes. To increase your odds and allay their fears, include a photo and short bio in your profile.

-- Send out queries before booking to be sure the host has availability; the online calendar is helpful but not always up to date. The host has up to 32 hours to respond, though more than half reply within four hours, according to Airbnb.

-- To protect the guest, the company does not release payment until 24 to 48 hours after check-in. If you are dismayed with your rental - if it is dirty, or was misrepresented, or does not appear safe - contact Airbnb immediately, and the staff will help find you lodging elsewhere.

-- If you are renting a private or communal room in a shared apartment, be discreet and tidy. Don't pounce on your hosts. Even though they are opening their homes to strangers, they might not be looking for a new best friend.

-- After your stay, help out the community and fill out the review, honestly, for better or for worse.